“Now, honey, don’t you cry. Everything’s going to be all right …”
“But now Susan’s
“Of course not,” Bertha said emphatically. “I’m sure it was just an accident.”
“Well, what did Jeff’s mother say?” Sally asked.
“She said — she said—” Bertha floundered, then looked to her husband for assistance.
“She didn’t say anything,” he said flatly. “Susan must have tripped and fallen, just like Michelle did a while ago. Michelle was just luckier than Susan, that’s all. And if you ask me, I think what Susan and the rest of you kids did to Michelle is rotten. I think you ought to tell her you’re sorry, and that you want to be her friend again.”
“But I already told her that,” Sally said.
“Then tell her again,” Fred Carstairs said. “That child has had a bad time, and if Constance Benson is doing what I think she’s doing, things are only going to get harder for her. And I don’t want anybody to say my daughter was a part of it. Is that clear?”
Sally nodded silently. In a way, what her father had just told her was exactly what she wanted to hear. But what if Michelle really didn’t want to be her friend anymore? Then what could she do?
It was very puzzling, and when she went back to bed, Sally was still unable to sleep.
There was something wrong.
Something very wrong.
But she couldn’t figure out what it was.
• • •
Although no one had called the Pendletons that evening, Cal could feel a tension in the air. Coming to Paradise Point, he sometimes felt, had been a mistake. What had it gotten him? Up to his ears in debt, a starvation-level practice, a new baby, and a daughter who would be crippled for the rest of her life.
But the problems would be solved, all of them. For as the weeks had gone by, Cal had come to a realization. For some reason, a reason he only vaguely understood, he belonged in Paradise Point. He belonged in this house, and he knew he wouldn’t leave it. Not for anything. Not even for his daughter.
But she wasn’t his daughter, not really. They’d adopted her. She wasn’t a
As the thought struck him, Cal shifted in bed, his guilt at even entertaining such an idea making him even more restless. And yet, it was true, wasn’t it?
Of all his probems, why should the worst come from someone who wasn’t even his daughter?
He turned over and tried to think about something else.
Anything else.
Images began to flow through his mind, images of children. Alan Hanley was there, and Michelle, and now Susan Peterson as well. Faces. Faces twisted in fear and pain, blending one into the other, all of them staring at him, all of them accusing him.
And there were others. Sally Carstairs, and Jeff Benson, and the little ones, the ones Michelle had been playing with — when? Yesterday? Was it really Just yesterday? It didn’t matter, not really. They were all there, and they were all looking at him, asking him.
Sleep began to swirl over him, but it wasn’t an easy sleep. Always they were there, helpless, appealing.
And accusing.
During the night, Cal’s confusion grew, and his anger grew with it. None of it was his fault. None of it! Then why were they accusing him?
The night, and his emotions, exhausted him.
The moon, going into its last phase, had reached its crest as Michelle awoke, and her room was filled with its ghostly light. She sat up in bed, sure that Amanda was with her.
“Mandy?” She whispered her friend’s name, then waited in the stillness of the moonlit night for an answer. When it came, Amanda’s voice was faint, faraway, but the words were clear.
“Outside. Come outside, Michelle …”
Michelle got out of bed and went to the window. The sea sparkled in the moonlight, but Michelle only glanced at it, then shifted her gaze to the lawn below her, searching the shadows for a flicker of movement that would tell her where Amanda was.
And then it came. A shadow, darker than the rest, suddenly moved out onto the lawn.
Her face tipped back, catching the strange light of the fading moon, Amanda beckoned to her.
Michelle slipped her bathrobe on and crept from her room. She paused in the hall, listening. When she heard no sound from her parents’ room, she started down the stairs.
Outside, Amanda waited for her. As Michelle approached she could feel her friend’s presence, pulling at her, guiding her.
She moved down the path, then along the bluff to the studio.
Letting herself in, Michelle made no move to turn on a light. Instead, knowing what Amanda wanted, she went to the closet, and took out a canvas.
She set it up on the easel, picked up a piece of her mother’s charcoal, and waited.
Whatever Amanda wanted to see, Michelle knew she would be able to draw it.
A moment later, she began.
As before, her strokes were bold, quickly drawn, and sure, as if an unseen hand were guiding her. And as she worked, a change came over her face. Her eyes, her brown eyes that had always seemed so alert, grew hazy, then seemed to glaze over. In contrast, Amanda’s milky pale, blind eyes came alive, flickering eagerly over the canvas, darting around the studio, drinking in the sights so long denied her.
The picture emerged rapidly, in the same bold strokes she had used the night before.
Only tonight, Michelle drew Susan Peterson, her face twisted in fear, at the edge of the bluff. Susan seemed to be suspended in mid-air, her body pitched forward, her arms flailing.
And on the bluff, her mouth curving in a mirthless smile, there was another girl, dressed in black, her face all but covered by her bonnet. It was Mandy. She seemed to be suspended in midair, her body pitched arms extended, not in fear, but as if she had just pushed something.
Her smile, though joyless, seemed somehow victorious.
Michelle finished the drawing, then stepped back. Behind her, she could feel Amanda’s presence, Peering over her shoulder at the canvas, breathing softly.
“Yes,” Amanda’s voice whispered in her ear. “That’s the way it was.”
Almost reluctantly, Michelle put the canvas back into the closet, obeying Amanda’s whispered command to hide it deep at the back of the closet, in a far corner, where it wouldn’t be found.
Then, leaving the studio as it had been when she came in, Michelle started back toward the house.
As they crossed the lawn, Amanda whispered to her.
“They’re going to hate you now. All of them. But it doesn’t matter. They hated me, too, and they laughed at me.
“But it’s all right, Michelle. I’ll take care of you. They won’t laugh at you. They’ll never laugh at you.
“I won’t let them.”
And then Amanda disappeared into the night.…
BOOK THREE. THE BLIND FURY
CHAPTER 19
